The High Price of Discernment

Discernment is a valuable skill and an awful one—there’s not much in your life that will pass inspection over time, as you hone the skill that lets you have discernment. Layer after layer, your sense of place or of belonging will peel back, leaving you with a more complete understanding of where you are and a lot less comfort in it.

We say of discernment in vodou that it distinguishes the power of a priest. A priest with little discernment might be powerful, but their ‘blindness’ will make them easy to manipulate and will nullify their best efforts over time. A priest with better discernment is in a position to make fairly easy use of the priest with little discernment, as are any number of the less positive or divinely aligned spirits. Priests tend to have the capacity to hear from many sources, though not all can hear clearly, and being unable to tell the difference between a positive or negatively aligned spirit is a way to cause enormous damage in a community or to oneself.

Despite this being common knowledge, discernment is not something many of us pursue. It is, metaphorically speaking, a blade that constantly cuts its owner, revealing our motivations just as handily as the motivations of the people around us.

Having discernment is something that is not automatically granted. It must be pursued, if it is possible for us, via a relationship to the spirits and typically a mentor with a clear relationship to the spirit. It also must be continually honed.

I cannot say I am not motivated by power, especially the power to do the work in front of me. I can say, however, that my reason for pursuing discernment has more to do with gratitude. I am grateful to the lwa for the things they have done for me. I am so grateful that I am willing to be cut to bear a tool which can fundamentally ensure that the work I do is as closely aligned to the divine as it can be.

I am also, it should go without saying, willing to cut with it.